Abstract/Summary

We live in a world characterised by mobilities – international, national, regional and local. Mobilities are not just about travel – movements are shaped by economic, social, political, emotional and cultural processes to become journeys motivated by and coloured with particular practices, purposes and meaning-making. Pilgrimage, the focus of this chapter, is variously defined as a form of formal religious journeying to a holy site; as a more loosely defined spiritual practice; as a time-space-journey of reflection; or as a journey to the scared, however that is defined. In the context of this broader understanding of the practice, pilgrimage is a global phenomenon and has attracted a growing number of participants in early twenty-first century Western Europe.